A New Way To Attract Readers

Summary

An author on Medium shares a potential strategy for gaining more readership by engaging with other writers through clapping for their articles, particularly those with fewer claps.

Abstract

The article discusses the challenges of gaining visibility on Medium, where quality content alone often isn't enough to attract a significant readership. The author reflects on the common advice given by successful Medium writers, who often monetize their knowledge by guiding others. Despite being in the top 5% of earners on Medium, the author attributes their success more to consistency in writing than exceptional marketing skills or genius. The proposed strategy involves clapping for articles within one's niche, leveraging the fact that Medium does not limit the number of daily claps. The author suggests that clapping for articles with fewer accolades increases the chances of receiving reciprocal attention, as these writers are more likely to engage with new followers and read their work.

Opinions

The author believes that quality content alone is insufficient for attracting followers on Medium.
They acknowledge the abundance of marketing advice on the platform, often from writers profiting by dispensing such advice.
The author is skeptical about the effectiveness of typical marketing strategies, including those they have read about extensively.
They suggest that clapping for articles, especially those with fewer claps, is an underutilized strategy that could potentially lead to increased readership.
The author admits that their newly discovered strategy is an experiment and may not yield significant results, but they encourage trying it since it's free and could lead to at least some engagement.

The search goes on!

Arek Socha — Unsplash

In a perfect world, a writer could log onto Medium, write something interesting, and attract followers just by virtue of the quality of his or her work. But we all know this isn’t a perfect world — and that’s simply not the way it works. You can write something really good and have very few or even nobody discover your brilliance.

Enter marketing advice — of which there is a preponderance on Medium. In fact, it occurs to me that many people who have successfully navigated Medium are making their living in great part via giving advice to those of us who would aspire to be them!

Recently, I read that only 5% of Medium writers earn $100 per month. Brutal! I myself am barely in that lofty demographic. And I don’t believe it’s because I’m a genius — nor one of those writers who excels at marketing. It mostly has to do with my writing 3 articles every day.

Still, I endeavor to find a way to reach more readers on this platform. And I think I just might have discovered a marketing strategy that nobody has mentioned in the voluminous articles I’ve read on the subject. So get ready. I’m about to share.

Clapping for articles in your niche might be a good way. This is nothing new. But nobody mentions is that while Medium limits the number of people you can follow daily, it places no limits on how many articles you can clap for in a day. At least not to my knowledge. So theoretically, you could spend all day clapping!

I know from personal experience that I will at least occasionally check out who claps on my stories — and even read some of their stories in reciprocation. It’s a natural reaction to somebody complimenting your work — provided you’re not a complete narcissist.

Now here’s what might be new: If you search a subject, the top of the page features stories with thousands of claps. Generally, readers will gravitate toward a) stories on page 1, and b)…articles with a ton of claps. As in…it must be worth reading if it has all those accolades!

But that author is not likely to give a crap about you or your clap. He or she is too successful to bother. If you hit page down a bunch of times, you’ll get to stories with just a few hundred or even a few dozen claps.

And that is the writer you want to compliment! He or she is checking for validation. And if you clap for that story, he or she will be much more likely to reciprocate and most important, check out your stories!

I’ve just discovered this marketing strategy and have barely embarked on the project. More than likely, it will be just as futile as most of the rest are. Maybe a drib here and a drab there. But hey! It’s worth a shot, right? It don’t cost you nothing. So why not?